Therese Godshaw (Gottschalk) nee Molling reading with her daughter Elizabeth; Hannover, Germany.

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Francine Durand, Aenny Catzenstein and Maren Matthiesen reading telegrams on Aenny's 80th birthday; London.

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Aenny Catzenstein nee Gottschalk reading the "Israelitisches Wochenblatt"; Israel.

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Discovering urban citizenship in the surveillance society

Cities and urban spaces around the world are changing rapidly from their origins in the industrialising world to a post-industrial, hard wired landscape. A further embellishment is the advent of mobile media technologies supported by both existing and new communications and computing technology which claim to put the urban dweller at the heart of a new, informed and ‘liberated’ seat of participatory urban governance. This networked, sensor enabled society permits flows of information in a multitude of directions ostensibly empowering the citizenry through ‘smart’ installations such as ‘talking bus stops’ detailing services, delays, transport interconnections and even weather conditions along desired routes. However, while there is considerable potential for creative and transformative kinds of citizen participation, there is also the momentum for ‘function-creep’, whereby vast amounts of data are garnered in a broad application of urban surveillance. This kind of monitoring and capacity for surveillance connects with attempts by civic authorities to regulate, restrict, rebrand and reframe urban public spaces into governable and predictable arenas of consumption. This article considers questions around the possibilities for retaining and revitalising forms of urban citizenship, set in the context of Marshall’s original premise of civil, social and political citizenship(s) in the middle of the last century, following World War Two and the coming of the modern welfare state.

Therese Godshaw (Gottschalk) nee Molling reading with her daughter Elizabeth; Hannover, Germany.

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Martin Goldschmidt reading on a park bench Portraits Men

Handwritten postcard addressed to Ruth Goldschmidt in Italy and dated 1937 from Zurich

Unidentified woman and two young girls reading; Leipzig Portraits Groups Women

Henry, born July 15, 1914, died August 6, 1978; Ruth, born 1923?

Erich Gustav Baum lying on the grass reading a book and smoking a pipe Portraits Men

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Lilly Baum seated at a table outdoors reading a newspaper Portraits Women

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Markus Dublon with his wife reading newspapers on a park bench Portraits Couples

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Portrait of Austrian writer Karl Kraus reading and holding a cigar; Berlin Portraits Men

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Members of Chewra Kadischa (Burial Society) of the Klaus Synagogue, Mannheim, taken one day before the November Pogrom (Kristallnacht) Portraits; Groups; Men

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